More than 305 Confederate soldiers who died in Confederate hospital in Clarksville,
Montgomery County, Tennessee, were buried in the garden behind the Clarksville Female Academy.
Two African-American women, sisters, who contracted disease and died while caring for the ill
and wounded the soldiers at hospital were also buried there.

The initial graves were marked with wooden headboard but in time these deteriorated and
specific knowledge of burial locations was lost. In 1897, a landslide exposed some of the soldiers'
remains. One hundred and twenty seven [127] unidentified remains were found, disinterred,
and re-interred in the Clarksville City Cemetery [present-day Clarksville Riverview Cemetery]. The remains
of the other 180+ Confederate soldiers were not disturbed.

In Spring 2000, despite protest from local citizens, the City of Clarksville started construction of a
new road bridge which resulted in the Confederate soldiers' burial site behind the historic
Clarksville Female Academy being covered with tons of soil and concrete structural elements.
The City later agreed to name the bridge the Confederate Soldier Memorial Bridge.

On Saturday, 26 May 2001, markers with two bronze plaques, listing 307 names, was dedicated
in Riverview Cemetery to document and memorialize the dead from Clarksville Confederate hospital.
The dedication service was held by the Clarksville, Montgomery County, chapter of the Sons of
Confederate Veterans, the Frank P. Gracey Camp 225.

On Sunday, 15 December 2002, a memorial monument was dedicated to honor the memory of the
more than 180 Confederate soldiers and the two nurses who are buried beneath the Confederate Soldiers Memorial Bridge
on Cumberland Drive. The monument is located near their burial site, about 200 yards south of the rear of the 19th century
location of the Clarksville Female Academy. An image of the memorial and its text
are below.

It is unknown if a specific soldier's body is among

the 127 Confederate soldiers disinterred and re-interred in Riverview Cemetery
or

The names and unit information of the 305 soldier who were buried in the garden
behind the Clarksville Female Academy are based on lists recorded by

Miss Blanche Louise Lewis, a student at the academy and an "angel of mercy",
~20 years of age in the winter of 1861-1862
and

John F. Couts, a local undertaker.

In 1997, with clues from David Stacker and the assistance of many individuals, Randy Rubel,
President of the Montgomery County Historical Society, found the information recoreded by these two individuals.

Miss Blanche Louise Lewis' information was found in issues of the Confederate Veteran magazine [Ref_01] and six
February 1897 editions of the Clarksville newspaper, The Daily Leaf Chronicle.

John F. Couts' list was found published in the 26 Jan 1866 edition of the Clarksville Weekly Chronicle.

Miss Blanche Louise Lewis' original records were acquired in 2005 by the Montgomery County Historical Society.

Mary and Susan Bibb, the African-American sister who dying of diseases they contacted while
serving as nurses to the ill and wounded, are known from local historic records.

The names on the memorial plaques in Riverview Cemetery is based on these two lists. The names
were gathered and checked in Washington, D. C., with the help of Raymond Watkins, a Falls Church, Virginia, genealogist
and American Civil War researcher.

These name are listed on the three webpages linked below.Clarksville Confederate Hospital Cemetery Burial Index:

These lists contain more that the 307 names on the plaques at Riverview
Cemetery, Clarksville, Tennessee. The additional names have been provided to the
Clarksville-Montgomery County chapter of the SCV by family and Civil War researchers.

The service information is based on the aforementioned lists, information collected by
Montgomery County [Tennessee] Historical Society, and use of online American Civil War
soldier database; Ref_02 and Ref_03. I sought to match each name against one or both of these online
databases. The nomenclature, highest rank, alternate names / initial(s) of the US National
Park Service Civil War Soldier and Sailor System database was used on the webpages.

NOTE: The notation 'no db match' indicates that the reported name could not be matched to
a name in the reported regiment in either online database.

Miss Blanche Louise Lewis, 1841 - 1902

Miss Blanche Louise Lewis, the second child and oldest daughter of Margretta [nee Barnes]
and George Thomas Lewis was known as an 'angel of mercy' at Clarksville Confederate hospital.
She and many other women living in Clarksville gathered supplies and cared for the sick from
the CSA winter camps of 1861-1862 and wounded soldiers transported to Clarksville from the Battle of Fort Donelson,
11 - 16 Feb 1862.

Her death on 13 Sept 1902 in McMinnville, Tennessee, is reported in the October 1902 edition
of the Confederate Veteran magazine. The article reports:

During the great war of the sixties the sick and wounded from Fort Donelson were taken to
Clarksville in great numbers, and the Female Academy, the College, and every suitable building
in the town were turned into hospitals. In these Miss Lewis was a constant attendant upon the
wounded and dying for many months, and moved to her father's residence some of the more serious
cases, that they might have more constant attention. She made friends among the soldiers, lasting
their lives through, and numbers who outlive her will bless her memory for the immortal deeds of
kindness she wrought for them when they were sick, wounded, and helpless. She was a ministering
angel to them, and kept up her work of faithful ministration during her entire life. Perhaps no
other woman in the South deserves more gratitude than Miss Lewis for her constant zeal and
sacrifice of personal comfort to serve disabled Confederate soldiers. She not only ministered to
them, but penned dying messages to loved ones, and she was faithful in those sacred memories to
the end of her life. She had the zealous cooperation and encouragement of her mother in this
sacred work, of whom record is made in the July VETERAN, 1900.

Note: There was a Confederate hospital in Clarksville, Tennessee, as early as Oct 1861.
One hundred and five [105] of the 304 deaths reported by Blanche Lewis occurred before
11 Feb 1862 when the Battle of Fort Donelson began. The fact that Blanche Lewis recorded /
reported these deaths implies that the Clarksville Female Academy was serving as a
Confederate hospital in the winter of 1861-1862.

See Miss Blanche Louise Lewis's image below.

Aftermath of the battle of Fort Donelson in Clarksville, Tennessee

An article published in the 18 May 2001 edition of the Progressive of Montgomery County, weekly newspaper,
by Wallace Cross, Professor Of History And Philosophy, Austin Peay State University, Clarksville, Tennessee,
details the aftermath of the battle of Fort Donelson in Clarksville and the later relocation of 127 burial remains.

The text from the Confederate Soldiers Memorial monument, located near the burial site of
180+ unidentified Confederate soldiers and the two nurses, behind the location of the 19th
century Clarksville Female Academy, is below.

During the War for Southern Independence, 1861 to 1865, this sacred ground was used as a burial
site for Confederate soldiers. The Clarksville Female Academy was used as a Confederate hospital
located 200 yards due north. By the end of 1861 over 200 men had died there. After the battle of
Ft. Donelson in February of 1862, hundreds of the sick and wounded were transported to Clarksville
by steamboats. Their decks were literally flowing with blood as if they had been used for slaughterhouses.

Under the direction of Surgeon in Chief, Dr. Joshua Cobb, the hospital corps received and cared
for the men as they arrived. The doctors were L. B. Hickman, Lowery, Jefferson, William Adams,
Goodman, Gullett, J. E. Dangerfeild, Bass, W. T. McReynolds, W. D. Lyle, James Singleton,
J. M. Jackson, Grooms, W. T. McReynolds, Alex McCown and J. A. Forbes. The nursing staff
included Miss Blanche Lewis, her mother Mrs. Margretta Lewis, Miss Flora Kyle, Miss Eliza Adams,
Mrs. Tompkins and Mrs.Ware. Two other devoted nurses, Mary Bibb and her sister Susan Bibb were
laid to rest here after they died of disease. All these nurses were known by the soldiers as
'ministering angels'.

In this corner of the academy garden, a total of 307 were laid to rest. In 1897, a landslide
exposed some of the soldiers' remains. Under the supervision of Commander Clay Stacker and
the Confederate Veterans of Forbes Bivouac, the bodies of 127 soldiers were found, reinterred,
and honored with a monument at Riverview Cemetery. Many years later the remaining graves
were covered when the first bridge was built here. In 2001, the Frank P. Gracey Camp 225,
Sons of Confederate Veterans placed two bronze memorial tablets at Riverview Cemetery. These
tablets list the names of all the soldiers that died at the hospital, including their company,
regiment, and home states. Later that same year this bridge was named in honor of the 180
Confederate soldiers interred here.

Manifold email exchanges with Randy Rubel; President of the Montgomery County Historical Society;
President of Company A, 50th Tennessee Reenactment Organization; past Historian and Commander of SCV Camp #225,
Clarksville; past President of the Montgomery County Civil War Preservation Society; volunteer researcher of the
Confederate soldiers buried in Greenwood Cemetery and Riverview Cemetery, Clarksville, Montgomery County, Tennessee..